I'll just Kick Back

[Roger Wilco]

I'll probably watch it on the opening day.
And if there isn't a simultaneous international release, I'll try to find a different way to watch the movie earlier than that...

 

[erastus25]

I've noticed a trend in Boston (where I live) to put insanely popular movies on so many screens that it shows about every half hour and you pretty much don't have to wait in line. I'm not sure if STXI will get that treatment. Either way I plan to go to the midnight showing. The only way I wouldn't go to that showing is if the Portland Trail Blazers are playing a playoff game that night.

Yes..good point..where I live in San Diego there are, oh, fourty screens in a ten mile radius...not like the old days when there were maybe four theatres scattered around San Diego...

Which is another reason I dispute GONE WITH THE WIND's adjusted numbers...

1. There were not a many theatres in 1939, and or people.

2. Certainly kids didn't flock to the movies, nor even if they did, would they flock to Gone With The Wind

3. We were coming out of a recession, and Europe was already at War...

I have talked about this with my grandma and grandpa many times (Grandma passed away 10 years ago)..but my grandpa is a sharp 95. They both saw GWTW one time..and thats it. For GWTW to have made that much money, adjusted for inflation, then the average person would have had to seen that movie 10 or 11 times...in a reccession, pre WW2 time..I don't buy it..

I think when they are trying to decide the most popular movie of all time they should take the amount of tickets sold relative to the population at the time...

Anyway..back to the subject at hand...I went to both IRONMAN and INDIAN JONES the days they came out and had no problem because it was showing on four of the eighteen screens at the theatre I go too...so one was starting like every half hour or so..

Rob
scorpio

I dont think you fully understand the role of the movie theatre in pre TV America ( and the world) it wasn;t just a place to watch feature films. You also saw serials, cartoons and short subjects.

Here is a quote from an article about the history and woes of the Theatre business:

Back in 1946, buttressed by the appeal of newsreels, movie theaters sold some four billion tickets in the U.S., at a time when the total population was 141 million. That's 28 movies a year, on average, for each and every American.

I think it's almost impossible to compare movie numbers across eras. There are so many confounding cultural variables at play it becomes impossible to figure out just how popular the movies really were. For example, if someone didn't see Gone With the Wind in theaters in 1939 they would never see it. Now, we have the option to "wait and rent it".

 

[Franklin]

I avoid the opening night madness of movies that expect large first-day crowds. The only time I got stuck in "line madness" for a movie was for GEN. The line ran the length of the mall at Pentagon City. Never again.
While we'll almost certainly see XI on opening night, I'll either buy the family's tickets in advance or go to a theater that has it on multiple screens.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

I like to keep that one-seat gap between me and a stranger, which is sometimes hard to do if we are looking for three seats (for my wife and daughter also). Even if I get in early, there is always some stranger who invariably wants to sit next to me (damn that guy).

So I'll probably wait at least until an early afternoon Sunday show during the opening weekend, or a "dinnertime hour" show the Monday or Tuesday after opening.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I like to keep that one-seat gap between me and a stranger, which is sometimes hard to do if we are looking for three seats (for my wife and daughter also). Even if I get in early, there is always some stranger who invariably wants to sit next to me (damn that guy).

So I'll probably wait at least until an early afternoon Sunday show during the opening weekend, or a "dinnertime hour" show the Monday or Tuesday after opening.

Yeah..and for me its usually some teenager dressed in all black who came straight from an all night session of DandD and hasn't bathed, probably, for a week or so..IF THAT!!!

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Franklin]

I like to keep that one-seat gap between me and a stranger, which is sometimes hard to do if we are looking for three seats (for my wife and daughter also). Even if I get in early, there is always some stranger who invariably wants to sit next to me (damn that guy).

My wife always wants a seat on the aisle in a theater for that reason. Part of my job is to study the effects of the social context on individual behavior, and the dolt who sits right next to you when there are other open seats around is violating a social convention. Most people are like you or my wife. If there are open seats, they want to maximize their personal space.
That guy is probably the same type of guy who'd also use the urinal right next to you in an uncrowded men's room.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I've noticed a trend in Boston (where I live) to put insanely popular movies on so many screens that it shows about every half hour and you pretty much don't have to wait in line. I'm not sure if STXI will get that treatment. Either way I plan to go to the midnight showing. The only way I wouldn't go to that showing is if the Portland Trail Blazers are playing a playoff game that night.

Yes..good point..where I live in San Diego there are, oh, fourty screens in a ten mile radius...not like the old days when there were maybe four theatres scattered around San Diego...

Which is another reason I dispute GONE WITH THE WIND's adjusted numbers...

1. There were not a many theatres in 1939, and or people.

2. Certainly kids didn't flock to the movies, nor even if they did, would they flock to Gone With The Wind

3. We were coming out of a recession, and Europe was already at War...

I have talked about this with my grandma and grandpa many times (Grandma passed away 10 years ago)..but my grandpa is a sharp 95. They both saw GWTW one time..and thats it. For GWTW to have made that much money, adjusted for inflation, then the average person would have had to seen that movie 10 or 11 times...in a reccession, pre WW2 time..I don't buy it..

I think when they are trying to decide the most popular movie of all time they should take the amount of tickets sold relative to the population at the time...

Anyway..back to the subject at hand...I went to both IRONMAN and INDIAN JONES the days they came out and had no problem because it was showing on four of the eighteen screens at the theatre I go too...so one was starting like every half hour or so..

Rob
scorpio

I dont think you fully understand the role of the movie theatre in pre TV America ( and the world) it wasn;t just a place to watch feature films. You also saw serials, cartoons and short subjects.

Here is a quote from an article about the history and woes of the Theatre business:

Back in 1946, buttressed by the appeal of newsreels, movie theaters sold some four billion tickets in the U.S., at a time when the total population was 141 million. That's 28 movies a year, on average, for each and every American.

And yet I cant find one person from those times, my grand parents and my great aunts and uncle, who went to the movies 28 times a year in 1939...and as I said, there were not enough theatres in 1939..ain't buying it..

Rob
scorpio

 

[Dojhar son of Bob]

"Indian Jones"?

A small, yet influential, film out of Bollywood.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yes..good point..where I live in San Diego there are, oh, fourty screens in a ten mile radius...not like the old days when there were maybe four theatres scattered around San Diego...

Which is another reason I dispute GONE WITH THE WIND's adjusted numbers...

1. There were not a many theatres in 1939, and or people.

2. Certainly kids didn't flock to the movies, nor even if they did, would they flock to Gone With The Wind

3. We were coming out of a recession, and Europe was already at War...

I have talked about this with my grandma and grandpa many times (Grandma passed away 10 years ago)..but my grandpa is a sharp 95. They both saw GWTW one time..and thats it. For GWTW to have made that much money, adjusted for inflation, then the average person would have had to seen that movie 10 or 11 times...in a reccession, pre WW2 time..I don't buy it..

I think when they are trying to decide the most popular movie of all time they should take the amount of tickets sold relative to the population at the time...

Anyway..back to the subject at hand...I went to both IRONMAN and INDIAN JONES the days they came out and had no problem because it was showing on four of the eighteen screens at the theatre I go too...so one was starting like every half hour or so..

Rob
scorpio

I dont think you fully understand the role of the movie theatre in pre TV America ( and the world) it wasn;t just a place to watch feature films. You also saw serials, cartoons and short subjects.

Here is a quote from an article about the history and woes of the Theatre business:

Back in 1946, buttressed by the appeal of newsreels, movie theaters sold some four billion tickets in the U.S., at a time when the total population was 141 million. That's 28 movies a year, on average, for each and every American.

And yet I cant find one person from those times, my grand parents and my great aunts and uncle, who went to the movies 28 times a year in 1939...and as I said, there were not enough theatres in 1939..ain't buying it..

Rob
scorpio

Not really a representative sample. Serials came out weekly. So to follow the story you'd have to go once a week. Heck as a kid in the early 1970s I went to the movies at least once a week, because I lived on a AFB in Japan and Armed Forces TV sucked.

How many theatres were there in 1939 any way? Any how many is not enough?

 

[Jack Bauer]

I'l see it the opening weekend.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

How many theatres were there in 1939 any way?

A lot more than there are now. San Francisco is littered with classic movie theaters from the 20s and 30s that have been driven out of biz by multiplexes but cannot be torn down due to landmark status so they end up as health clubs and whatnot. I'm sure a similar trend has swept through other cities, it's hardly a secret that the old one-screen theaters can't survive.

In the olden days, there was no such thing as television. B-movies served the same cheap-entertainment purpose as television, and to see several movies per week was no more remarkable than seeing several TV shows per week is today. When TV became widespread in the 1950s, B-movies started to vanish. There are no more B-movies today (don't get them confused with "crap movies" - that's a separate phenomenon, since crap movies can make more money than genuinely good movies.)

And just using your own relatives as population sample is absurd and proves nothing. Of course it varies widely by individual. I'm sure there are legitimate sources for such things as numbers of theaters or number of movies seen per person in 1939. I can recall seeing these stats and being astonished that people back then went to see several movies per week on average but when you think about the lack of competing entertainment, it's really not surprising at all.

 

[shapeshifter]

Probably in the first week...I hate crowds...

 

[Sheliak]

If it opens on Friday, I'll see it on Tuesday at 4pm.